Firebird (27 page)

Now his mother was dead.  And his little sister would be almost sixty, if she were still alive.   That little boy was long gone.  He’d been someone else for so long, he hardly ever thought of his real name.

Except when the boy came back in the dreams.  And lately, those dreams had been coming back to him almost every night.  He was on a wolf’s back, riding through a dark forest…  The poem every Russian child learned at his mother’s knee slipped like a shadow into his head.

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf’s back, riding along a forest path to do battle with a sorcerer-tsar

In the land where a princess sits under lock and key pining behind massive walls.

There gardens surround a palace all of glass; 

There Firebirds sing by night.

He swallowed the last of the tea and set the glass on the damp floor.  It was as if the poet Polonsky had foreseen his life.  His future.

After all these years, all the training, all the planning.  All the years of being buried so deep that he’d almost forgotten his first life.

He’d hoped
Firebird
would never happen.  But Charles Fraser and Evangeline Rhodes had gotten too close to the truth.  And now - now another woman was searching for him.

A woman with a little daughter...

He couldn’t think about that.  Almost invisible in the cocoon of wet heat, Ivan thought about his future.

I could leave here now and catch a flight to Canada,
he thought
.   I could make a life away from all this forever
,
hidden in a mountain lodge with its tall firs and winter snows and memories of home.

No, you will stay right here, he told himself bleakly.  You are a Russian, and you will keep your word.  He thought suddenly of the old Russian proverb learned at his mother’s knee. 
If you live among wolves, you have to howl with them.

The door swung open.  The heated mist swirled in the light that fell across the floor.

“I’m here, Prince Ivan.”

The man standing in the doorway was tall, well-muscled and fair, with eyes the color of a Siberian lake.  When they’d met a week earlier at the lodge in the Green Mountains, the man had introduced himself as Panov.  But to Ivan, Panov was simply his new Russian ‘Control.’

“We have trouble,” said Panov.  “Alexandra Marik has returned unexpectedly to Washington.”

“She won’t find anything, Panov.”

“And if she attends the gala at Foxwood?”

“Ah...  Then I will enjoy her company, of course.  We all will.  She’s a woman of great spirit, intelligence and grace.  A most intriguing combination.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“She doesn’t know who I am.”

“You don’t know
what
she knows.”

“She won’t cause a problem.  Leave her alone.  I don’t want her hurt.”

“We cannot let her stop us.  I will be at Foxwood, watching her.”

 Ivan closed his eyes.  “Alexandra Marik has a beautiful little girl,” he murmured to himself.  “A child needs its mother.”  And then, “I am so sick of death.   Leave her be.”

“You concern yourself over a simple game of cat and mouse, nothing more.   Perhaps I sent her roses after her sister’s funeral.  But I simply toy with her for my amusement.”

“The cat
terrorizes
its prey, Panov.  Just before it kills.”

Panov shrugged.  “Her death would be a serious inconvenience for me right now.  But the woman and her child don’t matter to me, Prince Ivan.  If she gets in the way…”  His right thumb and forefinger formed the shape of a gun.  “Do svidaniya.”

“You’re wrong.  Her death, so closely following her sister’s, would be too coincidental, raise too many alarms.  And she is a mother.  Her death would
matter
.”  Ivan looked down at the dirty, sweating tiles.  “Don’t you ever get lonely, Panov?  Don’t you ever wish, just for a moment, that you mattered to someone?  That you didn’t have to live a lie, because someone knew and loved you, the
real
you, and nothing else mattered?”

“No.  Never.”

Ivan’s breath came out.  “So,” he said finally.  “Answers, then.  I need to know who has re-discovered my existence after all these years.  Who has activated the Firebird, Panov?  And
why
?”

“My contact is a telephone number.  A man from St. Petersburg, a voice on the telephone.  He is a close friend of my grandfather’s.  They are old now, Prince Ivan, the last of the men who planned
Operation Firebird
in the shadow of the Winter Palace so many years ago.”

“Your grandfather? 
He
was one of the Shestidesyatniki?”

”Da.  The ‘men of the sixties.’  He helped to plan
Firebird
in the Cold War.”

“Loyal men.  I’ve wondered what it must have been like when they met with the others so long ago to plan their KGB operations.” 

“My grandfather was once a proud Colonel in the army.  He
believed
in planning for the future of Russia...”

“The
Firebird
files, along with the czarina’s brooch, were sealed long ago.  And lost.”

“Russians have a long memory.  The files have re-surfaced.” 

Ivan became very still.  “They are still bent on revenge - after all these years?  But the world has changed, Panov.  They are clinging to a past that no longer exists.”

“It exists for them, my Prince.  They still have no reason to trust the West.”  Panov’s voice was flat, emotionless.  “And why should they?  Every day our strategic weapons arsenals are reduced while the U.S. sits back and plans its national missile defense.  The struggle in Russia is greater than ever.”

“What were your instructions?”

“To follow Alexandra Marik, to learn what her sister knew.  Then, last week, I was sent to a safe deposit box in Midtown.  The Firebird brooch was there, and a letter with instructions to activate you.”

“For what purpose, Panov?”

“Our beloved country has decayed right before our eyes!”

“And suddenly this is reason enough to  - ”

“You have not been back to Russia in more than four decades, Prince Ivan.  The symbols of Czarist Russia - our crosses, our golden church domes - are now hidden by a forest of billboards advertising dental floss and Western magazines.  Our country has become a shooting gallery for corruption and violence. Contract killings are epidemic, $2,000 American, a real deal.  Even those Golden Arches from the West cannot disguise its dark spirit.”

“We are still a proud people, Panov.”

“Nyet.  We were a proud, highly trained army once.  Feared around the world.  Now - our tanks have no batteries, our ships have no fuel or spare parts.  We are armed with 20,000 nuclear warheads, but our sub bases have no electricity to keep the reactors from freezing.  My brother is a proud soldier, Prince Ivan.  But he has not received his military pay for three months.  If it were not for our - arrangement, he would be forced to drive a cab to feed his family.  It is snowing there now.  One of his fellow officers had to sell his coat.  Rubles are worthless.”

“I will be able to make a difference, Panov, after the election.”

“You will make a difference
now
, my Prince.  St. Petersburg is but a foreshadowing of the future of Mother Russia.  All the more reason to do what we are doing.”

“Tell me what I must do.”

“We must disrupt the upcoming election.  Create chaos.  The right man must be secured in place, Prince Ivan, he is critical to Russia’s future.  But there is someone standing in the way, someone who will push the United States in the wrong direction.”

Ivan stood slowly to face him.  “You want me to -”

“Da.  One man must die so another can take his rightful place.  You are the only one who can accomplish this.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You must understand, my Prince.  The only path to Russia’s return to greatness is with the Shestidesyatniki. 
No one
can get in our way.  We will do everything necessary to protect your mission.  As we already have.”  Panov stepped closer.  “Here are your instructions.  I will see you at the Rhodes gala
.”  He bent and murmured a name in Ivan’s ear.  Then he turned and left the room without looking back.

The man called Prince Ivan stared in horror at the closed door.

“No -” he whispered.  “He is my friend.  I cannot betray him.”

CHAPTER 29

“...dangerous times.”

John Selden

WASHINGTON
,
D.C.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28

Following a sleepless night, Alexandra was dressed before dawn and at Sam’s Gym by 7:30 a.m.  The seventh floor windows of the work-out room looked down on the treetops of K Street.  Early morning sunlight shimmered in the last autumn leaves and on newly bare branches.

A wall of mirrors reflected the crowded gym behind her.  Alexandra pedaled hard and fast on the stationery exercise bike, punishing her body to the limit in the vain hope of drowning out the thoughts that swirled in her brain.  The towel looped around her neck caught the sweat that rolled like tears down her cheeks.  Her exhausted muscles were on fire, her pumping lungs ready to burst.  But the work-out wasn’t working.

Tension coursed through her body.  Only hours to go until her brother-in-law’s gala benefit at his horse farm in Middleburg.  Only hours until she might discover Ivan’s identity…

She hadn’t yet told Garcia what she planned to do.  Probably wouldn’t.  He’d never go for it.  And he’d already told her in no uncertain terms that she’d bought a ticket on the crazy train.  Okay, so be it.  She didn’t need him.

CNN’s 8 a.m. news program was now running on the small television suspended from the gym ceiling above the row of bicycles.  An African woman’s regal face appeared on the screen, reminding her of Billie Jordan.  Billie had called her just before she left for the gym. 

“
You listen to me, Baby Sister
,” Billie had said in a shaken voice.  “My brother was a
patriot
, not a traitor!  So it’s up to us to clear Charlie and Eve’s names.  Come to the shelter in the morning, we have to talk.” 

Alexandra pedaled faster.  The news screen flashed, and now focused on the popular Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Senator David Rossinski, who was winding up an interview with a heartfelt call for a successful Nuclear Summit in St. Petersburg scheduled for early December. 

“America wants, and needs, to re-set our relationship with Russia,” he said into the cameras.  “But this is not easily done.  It takes time, and trust building.  There is an enormous amount of hard work ahead of us.”  The Senator’s voice dropped, became even more serious.  “I am deeply concerned,” he warned, “that Gulf countries with a long nuclear shopping list and billions in U.S. dollars are turning increasingly to Russia for technology and weapon-grade materials.  And too many of the old-guard Russians, men who insist on clinging to a life that is no longer sustainable, are still in positions of power...”

She watched Rossinski push a veined hand through thinning silver hair while his eyes moved constantly back and forth.  He was a tall, slender man with an interesting, fox-like face, a sad smile and those burning hooded eyes.  She’d read about him in a profile her sister Eve had compiled for a
People Magazine
story on Washington’s ‘rainmakers.’  His grandfather had been a rabbi in a village north of Moscow.  His parents had emigrated to New York City just before World War II.  Born on the day Nazi Germany surrendered, he had worked his way from the cement sidewalks of Canal Street to the marble corridors of the Capitol.  Now the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, David Rossinski had been asked just weeks before to join the Republican ticket when the current Vice President suffered a stroke.

She stared at the face on the small television screen above her, unable to decide if it was passion or ambition that she saw in those bright burning eyes.

She’d be meeting the Senator - as well as Garcia’s ‘person of interest,’ the philanthropist Yuri Belankov, and several members of the ‘Club’ – tonight at Foxwood. 
The Lions
, she told herself.  Almost all in their early to mid sixties, with strong political connections.  At least three of them had Eastern European genealogies. 
Fitting Ivan’s profile
.

Gasping for air, she slowed her pace on the exercise bike and checked her watch.  Eleven hours until the benefit.  

 She felt the way she did when she stood too close to a cubist painting at the gallery.  “One piece of the puzzle at a time,” she reminded herself, “until you can step back and see the whole picture.”  Charles Fraser’s letter, and now, with any luck, Eve’s taxi cab driver on the night of her death, were all parts of the pattern.  Tonight, at Anthony’s reception, perhaps she could step back and see, like the Picasso on the Baranski’s wall, the face of the man she sought.

“
It’s my day off, Ms. Marik
.”

The cab driver who had driven Eve to the Maryland cliffs had been reluctant to meet with her when she’d called him.

“Please, Mr. Goldberg.  It’s so important.”

“I dunno.  I was planning on taking my grandkids to the Hirshhorn.”

“The museum?”

“No, the deli.  Of
course
, the museum.  Who says cab drivers can’t like Henry Moore?”

“Not I!  I asked because the Hirshhorn is a competitor, Mr. Goldberg.  I’m a curator at the Baranski Gallery in New York.”

“Zat so?  Maybe you’re okay, then, Ms. M.  I might have a little time tomorrow morning.  Do you work out?”

“When I can find the time, Mr. Goldberg.”

“Sam’s Gym on K Street, 8 am.  Tell them you’re my guest.   I’ll be the short guy in the Red Sox cap, looking like I don’t belong.  You can’t miss me
.”

“You Alexandra Marik?”